Ongoing Research and Clinical Trials

Part of Mount Sinai's approach to offering multidisciplinary care is providing access to novel clinical trials. We offer clinical trials for advanced or recurring cancer, including trials of new drugs to stimulate the body’s immune responses to fight cancer, and trials evaluating new agents for patients with metastatic disease. Your doctor can provide you with more information on clinical trials open to enrollment that may be suitable for you.

Mount Sinai Health System is known for its dedication to translational research, which means that scientific discovers can be rapidly translated into clinical care. Many of our researchers are conducting studies that may lead to better diagnosis and treatment of patients with colon and rectal cancer. One such example is Dr. Steven H. Itzkowitz, MD, who conducts clinical studies focusing on detecting and preventing colon cancer in inflammatory bowel disease, reducing disparities in colon cancer screening, and developing new non-invasive stool DNA tests for colon cancer. Other studies underway are aimed at reducing health disparities and exploring new, less invasive ways to screen for colorectal cancer, including studies by Lina H. Jandorf and William H. Redd, PhD.

Active Clinical Trials

Each year 40,000 people are diagnosed with rectal cancer in the United States. Although chemotherapy and radiation play an important role in the treatment of advanced rectal cancer, surgery is essential to the management of the disease.

taTME with Laparoscopic Assistance is a procedure that combines standard laparoscopy, or multiple small abdominal incisions, with surgery through the anus in order to remove rectal cancer. This procedure is an alternative to standard abdominal surgery to remove cancer of the rectum. The purpose of this research study is to discover whether this approach is effective compared to the standard laparoscopic robotic technique.